Donald E. Westlake
Who Stole Sassi Manoon?
This (like me) is for Sandy
No picture shall be produced which will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin. Correct standards of life shall be presented on the screen, subject only to necessary dramatic contrasts. Law, natural or human, should not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation.
A Code to Govern the Making of Motion and Talking Pictures
by The Motion Picture Producers of America, Inc.
March 31, 1930
Stolen sweets are best.
Colley Cibber: The Rival Foods
1709
Schedule
Montego Bay Film Festival
Saturday, December 2nd,
8:00 p.m.; black tie dinner presented by the Festival Committee for the judges and most important guests — speeches — presentation of members of the jury.
11:00 p.m.; showing in the Main Hall of The Sun Never Sets, official British entry.
Sunday, December 3rd
3:00 p.m.; Tin Cup and River, official Indian entry
6:00 p.m.; Blondie Brings Up Baby, 1939, retrospective
9:00 p.m.; The Old Lions, official West Germany entry
Monday, December 4th
3:00 p.m.; Miasma, official Italian entry
6:00 p.m.; Blondie Meets the Boss, 1939, retrospective
9:00 p.m.; Giggle, invited British entry
Tuesday, December 5th
3:00 p.m.; The Beautiful Sewer, official Polish entry
6:00 p.m.; Blondie Takes a Vacation, 1939, retrospective
9:00 p.m.; Tomorrow the World, official Egyptian entry
Wednesday, December 6th
3:00 p.m.; Murder Times Murder, official French entry
6:00 p.m.; Blondie Has Servant Trouble, 1940, retrospective
9:00 p.m.; The Crippled Samurai, official Japanese entry
Thursday, December 7th
3:00 p.m.; Slime and Scorpion, invited American entry
6:00 p.m.; Blondie on a Budget, 1940, retrospective
9:00 p.m.; Naked Afternoons, official Swedish entry
Friday, December 8th
3:00 p.m.; The Boots of the Elk, official Russian entry
6:00 p.m.; Blondie Plays Cupid, 1940, retrospective
9:00 p.m.; Revolution! official Mexican entry
Saturday, December 9th
3:00 p.m.; Kangaroo Court, official Australian entry
6:00 p.m.; Blondie Goes Latin, 1941, retrospective
9:00 p.m.; Abortion, Italian Style, invited Italian entry
Sunday, December 10th
3:00 p.m.; Alive and Well, official Argentine entry
6:00 p.m.; Blondie in Society, 1941, retrospective
9:00 p.m.; Nuns and Harlots, invited French entry
Monday, December 11th
8:00 p.m.; award dinner
11:00 p.m.; The Big Knife, 1955, retrospective
Jury
Sir Walter Ridley, President, Great Britain — Chairman of the Board, British Gong Films — Diffuse Television Enterprises — Magnacar Wicker Furniture Ltd.
Claude-Ferrie Massagu, France — Editor, Oeuvres de Cinema
G. Chinovvikov, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics — Director of Film Secretariat, Murmansk
Ernst Klarg, West Germany — Film Curator, University Museum, University of Kaiserlautern
Mobara Tarachapu, India — film director (Passivity, 1966; Mournful Pan, 1967)
Theramin Kilpatrick, Australia — Chairman, Film Censorship Board, Brisbane
Sassi Manoon, United States of America — actress (Meet the Gobs, 1960; Bubbletop, 1962; All These Forgotten, 1964; Caper, 1966)
Part One
Machines
(1)
S.T.A.R.N.A.P
There was no one aboard the Nothing Ventured IV when Kelly came striding down the dock toward it in the sunshine. A gleaming white forty-foot Nelson & Almen cabin cruiser built in 1940, the ship had been modernized somewhere along the line and now boasted twin GM 6-71 diesels, air conditioning and a fully equipped cockpit. Kelly had owned it seven months now, and in that time no one had ever stepped aboard it other than himself. It had been his hideaway, his true home, his secret world. Today all that was about to change, and in his heart Kelly didn’t like it.
That was part of the reason he’d come here so early, almost an hour before the one o’clock scheduled for the meeting. He wanted to be alone in this place just a little longer, before other people intruded into his ship and his life, before his plans stopped being harmless dreams and began to move into reality, where there was no turning back.
Kelly, a slender studious spectacled young man wearing gray sneakers, khaki slacks, a white polo shirt, and clip-on sunglasses, stepped carefully from dock to deck and paused to look around, but so far as he could tell he was unobserved. The Florida sun beat down as though to deny that the calendar could read November, and amid the sparkle and gleam of all the boats at this marina south of Miami Beach the Nothing Ventured IV shone in silver and white anonymity, looking no different from any other craft moored here. But it was different, in ways that only Kelly knew.
Kelly ducked his head and trotted down the steep steps into the main cabin, a clean well-lighted place with green carpeting and maple woodwork. It was hot down here, so he switched on the air conditioner before removing his clipons and going to the small and crowded forward cabin, the center of his secret life. He turned on the hanging light and smiled at the machine.
“Hello, Starnap,” he said.
He sat at the console, his fingers resting gently on the keys. The machine was silent, but he could hear water lapping at the sides of the boat, he could feel the gentle motion of the ship tugging at its ropes. It soothed him to be here. “Well,” he said to the machine, “today’s the big day.” He shook his head with a rueful smile. “I certainly hope you’re right,” he said.
Kelly, Kelly Bram Nicholas IV, son of Kelly Bram Nicholas III, grandson of Kelly Bram Nicholas II, great-grandson of Kelly Bram Nicholas, hated everybody but loved machines. Given a father bowed under by the weight of being the third Kelly Bram Nicholas in a row, and a domineering mother whom only a psychiatrist could love, the present Kelly Bram Nicholas — jeeringly called Ivy at school because of the IV at the end of his name — grew up with the knowledge that machines could be trusted but people never. Where is there a human being with a ring in his neck that when you pull it he says, “I love you”? Nowhere. But there’s a Casper the Friendly Ghost doll that does just exactly that. And with feeling. And why? Because within its lifelike plastic exterior there exists a tiny brilliant machine.